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2005
2005 marked several firsts. First Christmas letter to be printed in landscape rather than portait, and the letter came with a watermark picture of Jack on one page and Aly on the next. This was also the first letter that came two paged, because Word didn't let you have a different watermark on each page. Enjoy! Christmas 2005 ' 'Happy Christmakwanzakkah from all of us here in Leesburg, VA. We’re trying out a new Landscape format for the letter this year just cause I have a landscape style picture for the watermark. Kinda cool? kinda creepy? You be the judge. After writing these letters for a few years, I have to work hard to change up a lot of the content and formatting for you people. I figure two more years of writing this dog and I’ll be able to start recycling from 1998. So, we’ll start with the obvious high point of the year for us. FINALLY getting the downstairs storage room all organized. No, but seriously, here is the 2005 story… You may recall that I wrote in last year’s letter that Jean and I were going to try to have a baby. Hey, it seemed like a good idea at the time. We were trying. Sooo, about 3 weeks later the doctor told us we couldn’t have kids. But, not to be daunted, we went to a specialist, who was much more optimistic about our chances. At least right up until he saw all of our test results, and then he was quickly coming to the same conclusion. We began to accept our fate with stoic poise, grace, bawling, some gnashing of teeth, and resigned ourselves to a year of answering increasingly painful questions from all of you about “when we’d be having that baby we promised.” Anyhow, through force of will or fate or just good technique (my vote), the day before we were to see the specialist to be told the number of a good adoption agency, Jean came down with a case of achy boobs and butterflies in the stomach which a plastic stick from the drug store confirmed was the beginnings of little baby Jack. What a blessing for us, not only because of all the emotional ups and downs of the “trying”, but we also learned about the baby a short time after we’d learned of the death of my grandfather George Mulford Terry. I miss him terribly, but am glad he got to spend time with Jean and Ali at least. Of course, Jean lobbied hard to name the new little one Mulford, but in the end we settled on Jack (after reviewing about 45,000,000 other baby names, just to be sure). Who knew there were so many things to call a baby. But we had to pick something that met our complex, exacting standards (i.e. doesn’t elicit the response “Eww I knew a guy named Todd and hated him!”). We needed something strong. Something presidential. Something that would offset the “Fartin’ Martin” nickname he will inevitably bear through elementary school. So Jack Douglas Martin it is. Jack, cause we like it, and Douglas cause my buddy Doug and other Dougs I’ve known have been awesome people, friends and/or role models, and Martin cause it turns out there’s some kind of law about that part of it. JDM has been the focus, and cause, of most of our waking hours ever since he showed up on October 18. Now around 2 months old, he’s a happy and mellow baby, drinking what seems like gallons of smelly formula in little tiny bottles which magically pile up in the sink, going through diapers like nobody’s business, looking at us and smiling some. He enjoys bath time if the water’s warm enough. He likes looking at his mobile and getting held by his sister. He sleeps 6 hours a night, sometimes. And he’s very lucky to have parents who love him so much, a sister who has been such a big help and so understanding, grandparents who’ve been so helpful and loving, and an extended family that has welcomed him and taken care of him and loved him from before he was even here. What a huge help and truly a blessing for us and the baby and Ali. So thanks to them and to all of you who have sent food and cards and gifts and your love. Wow, we’re so lucky. So that’s the mushy part of the letter, now on to the rest of the year. So I started out the year doing Two Wheel Radio and have continued to run that part time. It’s getting smaller but is much easier to run these days now that I’m streamlined. In April I got picked up by the Department of Justice. No, no, it’s not what you’re thinking. My experience with the Bureau of Prisons is outside the bars only, and when I get called for a meeting with some folks from the FBI, that’s actually a good thing. Uncle Steve tried to tell me that FBI thought they were better than everyone else. I guess I just didn’t expect them to think they were better than everyone else at the Dept. of Justice too. My official job is being the Program Manager for the PKI program, which is kind of like, umm, well, it’s sort of… well I work with computers. It’s okay though, I could never explain what I did at Accenture either. Jean has been umm, working with computers too at Accenture most of the year. She worked her way from doing 2 jobs in a 40 hour week to doing 3 jobs in a 32 hour week. No slacker her. Before she went on leave she was helping the government intelligence practice (a very small group of clients, to be sure) get on its feet and get running smoothly. Mission accomplished, she is now taking a leave of absence to try overachieving at home too. She seems to be loving spending time with the baby, and although still massively sleep-deprived, is recovering slowly and is doing such a fabulous job of things at home that I sometimes worry that someday soon I won’t have any handyman projects not to finish, or recycling to forget to take out to the curb. But she is really enjoying the time at home, the time with baby Jack and the time to spend with Ali. These are great years when it’s fun to do things with the kids and we’re lucky to have the flexibility to be able to have one of us at home. We may switch off every couple years as we get bored or tired, I guess, but that will be a positive thing too for all of us. Another highlight of 2005 was a trip to Japan in March. Well, the timing wasn’t great because Jean had pretty serious morning/afternoon/ evening/night sickness, and Japanese food is just the thing to keep everything up when you already have an upset stomach. Other than spending time seeking out western style food, we toured three cities: Osaka, Kyoto, and Tokyo. We saw sumo wrestling matches where Ali was most impressed by the size diapers those big boys were wearing (glad we aren’t changing those suckers), temples, shrines, and more temples, and visited our friends the Kralls in their swanky Tokyo high-rise. Oh, did I mention how much Jean enjoyed staying at the Ryokans and sleeping on a futon (thin mattress) in a tatami room (room with a straw mat covering the floor) after eating dinner food with all their normally-removed body parts still attached and intact? Ali and I had a blast!! So I wanted to talk about Ali last because she has been having a tremendous year. Ali’s been doing phenomenally well in school, loves her teacher, Mr. Hyrnk, has a gaggle of girlie friends who come and go seemingly constantly, has been to about 35 sleepovers and spent a week at the beach with her friend Brittany during the summer. She spent a week with us in the Outer Banks back in June, a long weekend (thanks to the Iannaconni’s condo!) at Ocean City, MD, and that week at Bethany, so she was beach girl all summer. She’s been doing very well in every subject, but really excelling at writing. She won the outstanding writer award from the entire 4th grade last year, and has written some really amazing stories this year. In fact, I’m going to let her write the Christmas letter next year. It may be hand written but that’s ok. Ali’s been such a big help around the house during Jean’s pregnancy and after the baby arrived. She’s grown up so much in the last year that it’s hard for me to believe it, much less for Jean to. Last year it was Hello Kitty for Christmas and this year it’s iPods and Abercrombie Gift Cards. I suppose it won’t be long till she’s looking for colleges (she’s already settled on JMU, by the way). She is very excited about going to middle school next year. The school’s about the same distance from the house here, but, get this, you get lockers, never have to walk in line, and get to go to different classrooms for different classes all day. How cool is that? Very cool. She’ll also get to go with her friend Brittany, who got sent to a different Elementary school this year for 5th grade. I’m pretty sure that if she gets any more friends though she’ll have to hire a personal secretary to schedule her playdates in 15 minute intervals. Maybe that’s something Jack Jack can help her with in a couple of years. So that’s about it for the Leesburg Martins for 2005. Despair, travel, elation, job changes, pregnancy, sleeplessness, pure joy. The perfect year, in our opinion. Here’s hoping your families have a blessed, wonderful, perfect new year of 2006. Please stay safe, have fun, enjoy, we hope to see as many of you as we can in 2006. Love, ' '''Jean, Rob, Ali & Jack ' '''And Buddy and Biskits